


sotto il letto

by Fxckxxp



Category: SKAM (Italy)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fix-It of Sorts, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Missing Scene, POV Niccolò Fares, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:20:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24205063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fxckxxp/pseuds/Fxckxxp
Summary: Marti and Nico's talk under the bed after hide and seek.
Relationships: Niccolò Fares/Martino Rametta
Comments: 51
Kudos: 223





	sotto il letto

“Can I come down there?”

Nico studies Marti’s face when the silence stretches, which has never been one to hold back.

He can barely see it, here in the dark and under the bed. But it’s in his eyes. Brown and warm. It makes the heartache in them pensive instead of piercing. His mouth, too. The little pinch down, the way he puts his thumb to his bottom lip and tugs on it slightly. 

Sometimes Nico feels like he can read Marti like a book. But it seems, lately, they’ve skipped a chapter. Maybe two. Skipped right to an end that doesn’t make sense.

He’s upset. Sad. And there’s some weird, backward comfort in that. To know Nico’s not the only one suffering in this situation. To know there’s more behind the smiling, laughing, joking Marti from the party earlier when Nico kept stealing glances.

“Yeah,” Marti whispers eventually, nodding. He even scoots over a little. “Yeah.”

Nico crawls under the bed to join him, wiggling to get comfy while keeping his distance. He inhales deeply, closes his eyes, and clasps his hands together to rest on his stomach.

He very pointedly does not look at Marti, who is also not looking at him.

“Should I start?” Nico asks the bottom of the bed frame.

Marti makes a thinking sound — a sad exhale before mumbling. “A good idea.”

“We had... half a thing, yeah,” Nico clears up right away. Funny how every hesitation he ever had telling Marti has disappeared now that he’s gone. “Like two years ago. But nothing now, not at all.”

Marti snorts like he’s still not so sure. “Why were you so excited to see him?”

“I mean… Marti. Okay, there was a little something but more than anything he was my friend. Who they sent away to… get what might as well be considered conversion therapy. Because of me. I didn’t even know… if he was okay.”

There’s a long pause where Nico is tempted to look over at Marti but doesn’t. He’s glad to hear some remission in his voice anyway.

“Yeah…” Marti whispers even quieter than before. “That would suck.”

“I didn’t know how to tell you, I guess.”

“That's not an excuse.”

Nico exhales through his nose sharply, almost annoyed. A little bit at Marti and a lot at himself. There’s so much he wants to say that can’t seem to fall together in any sort of cinematic supercut where his feelings match up with the timeline or with what he said and didn’t say to Marti and —

“No, it's not,” he settles for, cutting off his racing thoughts. He’ll start here, he guesses. Meeting Marti where he’s at so he can at least hold on to him there. “But have you always known what to say... and what not to say? And when, and how? And to who? Your whole life?”

Nico can hear Marti swallow. Sounds sticky. “No.”

“I know it’s not very easy to trust me.” He reaches up and starts picking at a rusty nail barely hanging on to the old bedframe above him. Then gives up. “I know we essentially started our relationship with me... one foot out of another.”

Marti laughs, but it’s cold. “And even then, before me, you had one foot in another.”

This is what makes Nico turn his head to face Marti, eyebrows raised in half confusion, half defiance. Surprised to find that Marti is already looking at him. For how long, he doesn’t know.

“Maddalena…” Marti trails. “Told me some things. I can piece together that this… _‘half a thing…’_ happened when you were still with her.”

Nico’s ashamed of that, he is. He doesn’t want to turn away, but Marti looking at him with a mixture of contempt and compassion makes his stomach whirl. So he closes his eyes. Unable to know or decide or even guess if this, under the bed, is the final goodbye or not. Albeit much better than the one over a week ago, which had no resolve. But Nico’s not quite sure how he’ll be able to live with either, let alone both.

“Hey,” Marti whispers. When Nico doesn’t open his eyes he whispers it again. “We’ve been together for so long. And you never told me.”

His face is soft. A little teary and blotchy and any antipathy that was there has dissolved. Nico feels like he hasn’t seen this face in a while.

 _“Been_ together?” Nico asks weakly.

“As opposed to what?”

He pauses. _“Were_ together. Past tense.”

“Ni.”

“Relationships have rough patches,” Nico comments. “Sometimes they end there.” As if he’s almost begging Marti to stop dragging it out.

Marti actually smiles — right at him. Nico doesn’t know whether to hold on to it or blink it away.

“Ah,” Marti quips, like he’s been gearing up to use this one. “And you know what literally everyone says is the key to a good relationship?”

Nico sighs sharply through his nose. “Communication, I know.”

Marti turns his face back up, looking at the bottom of the bed. “If you told me all this before, I wouldn’t have gotten so inside my own head about it.”

Nico winces.

Marti notices and clears his throat. “That came out a little wrong.”

“Yeah.” His voice hitches. “I know what that’s like. To be inside your own head too much about something. But I don’t punch people.”

It gets quiet. So quiet Nico holds his breath to check if Marti is too. 

“I know,” Marti nods. “I’m sorry.”

“This week has been really tough,” Nico says honestly. “Without you.”

Marti looks away and nods. “I know what that’s like, too.”

“Knowing you could…” Nico trails, pinching his face and trying to remember without any of the details. Those are what hurt the worst. “Leave. Just like that. After everything you said about _enjoying this every day... Minute by minute.”_

Marti’s reply is fast. “That doesn’t mean ‘do whatever you want and we’ll _always_ excuse each other.’ And It wasn’t _‘just like that —’”_

“It was,” Nico cuts him off. His gaze is almost angry now, so he tries to shake it away. “Look, I regret not giving you the full truth. I couldn’t tell you we were never really just friends, but I could tell you we were just friends right now. That part is true, I swear it.”

Marti hesitates, looking over Nico with an almost pained face. Like the truth is finally sinking in, sour into little pinpricks.

“I regretted it the second I left, you know,” Marti chuckles darkly to himself. “As soon as I walked out the door I wanted to turn around and walk right back in.”

Nico finds the corner of his lip turning up. Satisfaction. 

“But you’re a bit too proud. And maybe you... overreacted?” He prompts it like he wants Marti to agree.

“Yeah,” he sighs. The single word sounds heavy. “No ‘maybe.’ I really did. But Ni, I try to have so much patience —”

“I know,” Nico interrupts, wavering for a moment before continuing. To make sure Marti is really listening. “Because I know you pretty well. And I think you know me pretty well. And it... _hurts_ to know that you’d ever think I wouldn't want to be with you.” 

He watches Marti take it in, lips parting to make a surprised _O._ Eyes watery and wobbly.

“Do I not show you enough?” Nico asks it earnestly, almost sweetly — not digging for anything other than an honest answer. He just wants to be good. To be better. To have Marti back.

“No,” Marti softly drags out the protest — almost chokes. “That’s the thing. You do. A lot. So much. In the beginning and now, it’s never waned.”

Nico hears him swallow again, watching his throat move with it and then push up a gasp. A tear.

“Maybe,” Marti tries to continue. “Maybe, sometimes, I’m realizing now, I take all of that love for granted, and I don’t see it when it’s right in front of me. I only see what I want to see.”

(And not that Nico shouldn’t ever try to be good, to be better. But there’s a lot of comfort in knowing he’s more than enough, too.)

“When I saw you with him…” Marti shakes his head and almost grimaces, looking away from Nico. “You felt like a stranger. _I_ felt like a stranger. Like there was this… monster inside of me who wanted you so much I didn't want you at all.”

When Marti looks back at Nico, it’s slowly. Afraid of what he’ll find.

Nico makes sure it’s nothing scary — no monsters — something soft. 

“I think I was so terrified to lose you, I did it myself.” Marti shakes his head again. “I don't know that person.”

Nico nods, his lips pressed together. “I don’t know if I... know that person, either.” 

And then he watches something in Marti find the courage to half-smile.

“Do you know what I _do_ know?”

Nico hums, curious.

“This week... made me feel like the person I was before I met you.” Marti waits, studies Nico’s face before continuing to see if there’s any sort of confusion. “Around everyone, I was pretending. Trying to act like I don’t care… like nothing bothered me. Not wanting to hear what other people had to say... Even if everything felt like too late. By the time you were willing to tell me, I wasn’t ready to listen anymore. But then... alone,” Marti laughs — it comes out stifled — “I literally ate ice cream on the floor with Sana. Miserable.”

Nico, unsuspecting, feels Marti take his hand and intertwine their fingers. He actually has to look down at them, clasped between their sides, to believe it.

A few things happen all at once. The first is relief — instant and tingly and somehow a thief of all the air in Nico’s lungs. Following behind is the simple recognition of Marti’s skin, which seems like he felt a lifetime ago. And then, all the warmth that being around Marti brings — the warmth that disappeared not just when he left, but the time leading up to it as well. Nico feels it like the sun through black clothing.

“I know that I’m miserable without you, Ni,” Marti can barely say. His lip trembles when he speaks. “I know that I’m not the most kind and understanding version of myself when I’m not with you. I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have left you like that.”

He rolls over, crumples into Nico’s chest. Who freezes for a second as if he forgot what Marti felt like this close.

“I’m sorry I lied to you.” It comes out much less composed than he’d hoped for. On the brink of a sob. He tries to hold it together by holding Marti.

Who shakes his head against Nico’s shoulder, like that’s all old news and he’d rather forget. “We can say half lied.”

Nico laughs, a contradictory tear rolling down his nose at the same time. It probably lands somewhere in Marti’s hair. “Can we also say we half broke up?”

Marti snorts. “We had a little break.”

“And now?”

“And now…” Marti’s voice lowers — a little more serious. He pulls himself away to look Nico in the eyes. So close together they kind of cross. “I’m an ass who will get down on his knees for you to take me back.”

“We’re already laying down,” Nico smiles. “It’s close enough.”

Marti nods, swallows again. Tears this time. It sounds squeaky. “I need you to be honest with me, though.” He puts his hand on Nico’s chest. “I can’t do half-lies, imagine me with a full one.”

“No lies,” Nico agrees. He puts his hand on top of Marti’s. “Not even half ones. I'll take away the white ones too, if you want.”

Marti raises one eyebrow. “The white ones?”

“The white lies,” Nico laughs.

“Like?”

“Like … last month when you borrowed my sweater and asked if it looked too small, and I said no.”

Mart’s neck bends back a little. “It didn't look good?”

Nico shrugs and lopsides his smile to keep it from being too callous. “It was okay…”

“Harsh,” Marti winces. But there’s no malice in it. “Okay, okay, you can keep the white ones.”

“Okay,” Nico agrees. “But then I need you to trust me. I don't do well when I'm being made to prove myself all of the time.”

Marti scoots back just a little to look at more of Nico’s face. Up and down. “It’s funny…” he starts softly. “Sometimes I feel like we have so many long talks, even a year later, about being sorry, about what to do if you ever….” Marti waves his hand in the air and rolls his eyes to indicate he doesn’t have to continue. They both know what he means. “And here I am, the one losing my mind.”

Nico doesn’t disagree, but his smile is reassuring. That it’s okay. That he understands.

“I know people have their rough patches,” Marti goes on, “but I don't want this to ever happen again. I hate it.”

“I don't either,” Nico quickly agrees.

“So it’s settled, then? We don't lie.”

“And we tell each other how we feel.”

Marti smiles. “And we trust each other. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Okay. Now, I haven’t kissed you in 10 days and I’d like to change that.”

They don’t wait, just nod into it almost banging foreheads under the bed. It’s slow and tender and stoic before they need to breathe.

Marti’s lips are soft. His eyelashes are wet. He smiles into it — big just like always.

Nico’s glad he doesn’t have to forget what it feels like.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on [tumblr](https://bisexualcaravaggio.tumblr.com/) too 💛


End file.
